


Old Flavors On New Tongues

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Fireside Tales [133]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Future, GFY, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 07:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1543472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To be sure, it's not like the beers they'd had before they remembered, or long ago, when the world was different. But it's still beer, and it's tasty and good for getting them pleasantly drunk, and drinking everyone else who dares to challenge them under the table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Flavors On New Tongues

**Author's Note:**

> Pippin Took, on beer, mushrooms, pipe-weed, and Merry  
> Prompt: Beer  
> Alternate Universe: Requiem Court

It's hard to get any sort of grain, with so much arable land beyond the reach of the strongholds, but Merry and Pippin are nothing if not creative in their desire to create the best beer possible. They guard their workshop fiercely, and their recipes even more so, though they share the results generously. It's easier to get supplies if they do that.

To be sure, it's not like the beers they'd had before they remembered, or long ago, when the world was different. But it's still beer, and it's tasty and good for getting them pleasantly drunk, and drinking everyone else who dares to challenge them under the table. It would be even better with pipe-weed to go with it, but that's even harder to come by, and everything they've tried so far tastes awful, and not worth the effort.

"Mushrooms don't taste the same." Merry is poking disconsolately at the pan of mushrooms they've cooked up in the best of the beers with some garlic and butter. Pippin rather agrees that it doesn't taste as good as he remembers it tasting when they were hobbits instead of Men. "We should talk to Galadriel and find out if she's made any progress on the plans to fix people who aren't feeling right in their body."

"Even if she has, she can't really make us hobbits again." Pippin sighs, picking up another mushroom, and munching on it. It doesn't taste as good, but it's still a mushroom cooked in beer, and he's not going to pass on that for anything. "And I'd rather know why we're doing this over again anyway. There's a lot of people who probably shouldn't be here all at once."

Everyone he's talked to is as confused as they are about why they even remember who they used to be - even Dori, who's lived more than one lifetime since her first time. It's apparently normal for dwarves to be reborn, even in a different gender, but not for them to remember everything. Others, though, haven't been back before, and everyone wants to know why, to a greater or lesser extent.

Merry sighs, laying back so he's sprawling on the bench they've put under the only window in their brewing room, staring at the ceiling. "It would be nice to know. I hope it's not another thing like Sauron and that ring of his."

Pippin moves the pan of mushrooms out of danger, and drapes himself half over Merry, folding his hands over Merry's stomach to rest his chin on. "Magic artifacts that need to be destroyed where they're created are annoying. And I don't want to see Frodo - or Boromir - driven around the bend like that again."

He smiles when he feels Merry's hand in his hair, running through the curls that he'd been glad to find when he'd woken up confused about who he was and where he was, and just about everything else about the world. That and being curled around Merry already had probably been all that kept him from going as crazy as some of the people Outside.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not actually sure if Pippin is male-bodied or female-bodied, only that he thinks of himself as male, so those are the pronouns to use. I do know that he and Merry are impossible to separate in any lifetime, so I'm utterly unsurprised that he decided at the end that he'd been with Merry for years before the whole memories hitting him like a ton of bricks thing.
> 
> Frodo is part of the Court of Mists, so not too far away from Merry and Pippin if they want to go see him. Sam is in the Court of Shadows, and doing pretty well with it.


End file.
